E. Peevie tells stories about life, love, loss and other topics that don't begin with L.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Eulogy: Alfred Charles Meyer

I’m not an expert on my dad, but I can tell you a few
stories that will give you a pretty clear picture of what we have lost and
what heaven has gained with his passing.

First of all, we know that dad and mom had the most perfect
of marriages, and never had an argument in 64 years, one month, and one week of
wedded bliss—or at least, not one that they would admit to. Their marriage was
a union of best friends, and they always presented a united front in parenting
us five kids. This meant that sometimes they were both wrong.

Dad had some fun dating an identical twin. You’d have to
look pretty close at mom and her twin, my Aunt Jean, to tell the difference. Somebody
once asked dad, “When you go to pick Joyce up for a date, how do you know
you’ve got the right twin?” and dad said, “Who cares? They’re both cute.” Mom
hated that story. Probably still does.

Dad was not a believer when he first started dating his cute
girlfriend, Joyce. After they had dated awhile, mom told him she could not go
out with him any more unless he came to church with her. So he did, and he fell
under the spell of the great preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse at Tenth
Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He heard the gospel, and believed it, and
turned his life over to Jesus.

Dad loved to tell the story of how Pop-Pop, mom’s father, gave
his permission for dad to marry her. Pop-Pop said he would not give his
permission until dad went to Bible college for one year, so mom and dad both
enrolled in classes at Philadelphia College of Bible. Dad ended up continuing
there not for one year, or two, or three—but for nine years. That nine years
laid the foundation for 40 more years of Bible study, and an unshakable faith.

Not only did mom’s influence bring dad to the gospel, but
she took good care of him in every other way as well—and even at the very end
of his life, as he held her hand in the Intensive Care Unit at Grandview
hospital, he wanted to make sure she knew how much he loved her. “I love you,
Daddy,” she said to him, and even though his voice was weak and blocked by a
tube down his throat, we could all hear him say, “I love you, sweetheart.”

Dad was not a perfect parent, and each of his five children
is messed up in his or her own way. But we don’t need him to be perfect to
remember him with deep love and admiration, and miss him. He was ahead of his
time as a hands-on dad who changed diapers and did housework. He would load all
of us into the car on a summer Saturday morning, pack the cooler with
sandwiches, fill the thermos with sweet iced tea, and drive us to Ocean City
for a day on the beach. Every time he’d bring his garden spade and dig a giant
sea turtle in the wet sand, and kids would come from up and down the beach to
admire it and climb on it. The day on the beach would be followed by an evening
on the boardwalk with bumper cars, skee-ball, Taylor’s pork roll, and salt
water taffy.

I’m grateful for these kinds of growing-up memories of my
dad. There are other images of dad emblazoned in my mind as well: Dad pulling
weeds out of the yard, muttering about “bodacious dandelions” the whole time.
Dad playing ping-pong with us in the basement. And then, in December, setting
up what we called The Platform—that’s Platform with a capital P—a flat plywood
table, with trains and winter scenery and battery-powered racecars with
hand-held controllers. Dad setting up the artificial white Christmas tree year
after year until it was actually sort of yellow, controlled by the kind of
frugality comes from living through the Great Depression.

If you knew dad for very long, you learned that his faith
was his top priority. I often found him, in his bedroom, on his knees, praying.
Or he was sitting in his chair, reading his Bible, and perhaps referring to a devotional
guide. He made some notes about his preferences for how we would remember him
after he was gone, and these notes included a reference to I Corinthians 15.
This chapter contains an eloquent summary of the gospel: Christ died for our
sins. He was buried, and he was raised on the third day. And then this: “By the
grace of God I am what I am,” Paul wrote, “and his grace toward me was not in
vain.”

Maybe dad was thinking of this chapter in his last hours. He
was resting peacefully; his eyes were closed. Mark said, “I wonder what he’s
thinking about.” I leaned over Dad and asked him, “Hey Dad, Markie wants to
know what you’re thinking about.”

He opened his eyes and looked in mine and said, “The cross.”
Maybe he was thinking of these verses in I Corinthians 15:

For
this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must
put on immortality. When the perishable
puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come
to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O
death, where is your sting?”

Later that same day I asked him, “Dad, are you looking
forward to seeing Jesus?” and he answered without hesitating: “Amen.”

3 comments:

1. I am sold on Donald Grey Barnhouse's name, no questions.2. I laughed at "bodacious dandelions"- I can imagine a few of my male family members saying something along the same lines. 3. What an amazing thing, to have so many memories with the undercurrent of your dad's faith running through them. so encouraging.